Man Of Steel review: Steel yourself for a very noisy Superman

This may not be the best Superman movie ever – I’d rate it third, after the first two by Richard Donner and Richard Lester – but it’s certainly the most humourless. It’s also, easily, the noisiest.

Man of Steel is bombastic from start to finish, and when I came out my ears were ringing as though I’d been beaten around the head with tin trays.

Like Batman Begins, the first Spider-Man, or the original 1978 Superman, it’s an ‘origins’ story, showing how the man with unconventional views on how to wear underpants descended to Earth and persuaded us he was here to defend not destroy us.

Clark Kent, alias Superman (played
with maximum handsomeness, a fetching dimple and absolutely no sense of
humour by virtually unknown Brit Henry Cavill), has been raised in Texas
by salt-of-the-earth farming folk – Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, on
good if muted form.

Costner has a vaguely distant look in his eyes, as though wondering why his career went so badly wrong after Field of Dreams.

Superman, formerly known as Kal-El, is
the son of Kryptonite scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) who likes
delivering homilies about how intergalactic species should all get
along, until the principal villain gets as bored as we are, and shoots
him.

His son learns the hard way that being different on Earth creates at least as much suspicion as admiration.

Still, at least repeatedly saving the
life of pretty investigative journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams) earns him
a kiss. It’s too bad that Cavill’s superhuman stiffness makes it look
as though she’s trying to snog a piece of granite.

Like virtually every other superhero
movie, the film takes the form of super-ginormous explosions leading up
to a climactic battle that trashes a major city.

If it’s fighting you like, or very
loud music, or ultra-simple plotlines that stretch on interminably with
characterisation of similar complexity to The Teletubbies, Man of Steel
delivers.

Initially, it promises a lot more. The opening 15 minutes on
the dying, spectacularly volcanic planet Krypton have a visual
imagination that is regrettably not sustained throughout the remaining
two hours-plus.

The actors’ talents are pretty much
wasted on a screenplay that’s woefully po-faced. It wouldn’t have killed
the writer to come up with colourful characters.

And I did miss the
light relief offered by Christopher Reeve as a more accident-prone Clark
Kent.

The Man Of Steel is an efficient, factory-made product and a triumph of spectacle over content

Director Zack Snyder gave us the Spartan battle epic 300, Watchmen and
the awful Sucker Punch. Another obvious influence is the movie’s British
producer Christopher Nolan, of Dark Knight fame.

NoNe are known for their lightness of
touch and they all take their comic-strip culture very seriously indeed.
The Christian iconography of God sending his son down to save humanity
is very much present.

This is the kind of script in which
the only language spoken is fluent exposition. For me, the action
sequences last many minutes longer than they ought to, and I can’t help
feeling that at some point even fanboys will tire of seeing what is
essentially the same movie over and over again.

But there’s no denying that Man Of
Steel is an efficient, factory-made product, shrewdly catering for its
youngish, predominantly male audience.

It’s a triumph of spectacle over content.

Many will find it more entertaining than I did, and mind less about the absence of humour, originality, subtext or subtlety.